From Poverty to Proprietor

Young people in Mongolia face the same challenges as those in Australia and New Zealand. But combine that with extreme poverty and an interrupted education, and life can seem hopeless. But one teen learned otherwise, as Candice Jaques reports.

Life did not start out well for Jargal.* Adopted^ as a baby, he was then abandoned to be raised by his elderly grandmother. When he was just seven years old, she passed away. Jargal wandered from relative to relative, and never attended mainstream school.

By the time Jargal was 16 years old, he was spending most of his time with young people engaged in criminal behaviour.
When his friends committed a robbery, he was arrested along with them. He was illiterate and had virtually no family support.

When Jargal was first arrested, he was sent to a pre-detention centre, where the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) happened to be conducting literacy classes.
Jargal’s situation, although grim, started looking better.

The literacy class was part of ADRA’s Ultra Poor Tutoring Project for children from ultra-poor families.
This project prepares children to enter their first year of school and enables those who were forced to leave school for other reasons to continue their studies. Jargal joined ADRA’s literacy class, where he learned reading, writing, numeracy, language, health and life skills. He attended for one year, while awaiting trial, finding the classes interesting and enjoyable.

When Jargal was sentenced to eight years imprisonment, his literacy teacher felt the sentence was too severe and decided to help him. With the support of others, she hired an advocate for Jargal.

Since he was under 18 years of age, he was released on probation. At this time, Jargal realised they really did trust him and believe in his abilities. He was sorry for his past behaviour and wanted a new life.

Jargal is now living with relatives and has joined ADRA’s Youth Enterprise Project, which strengthens the social and economic capacity of young people in areas of high juvenile unemployment through education, vocational skills and business training. This project provides training in areas such as sewing, hairdressing, cooking and carpentry.

Through this project, Jargal is learning to be a barber. The project is also providing him with small business training to enable him to turn his newly acquired skills into a viable livelihood. He has new classmates, good teachers and finds the training interesting. Thanks to ADRA, Jargal finally feels good about himself and his future.

*Name changed to protect privacy.
^ This may not be a legal adoption, but could refer to accepting another person’s child into the family as dictated by culture.